Fluff

I do believe that's actually already the plan, because I remember reading somewhere that they wanted it to be possible to go through the entire game without companions..although I imagine this will be significantly harder.

Your take on it is exactly what you said, simplistic. You keep going back to one point, cutting features. Which nobody here is asking for or suggesting. DLC doesn't have to be cut content to sell later, and if that's why you're against DLC you should be against Expansions too because the exact same argument could be used against them as well. Extra portraits for example could just be something they didn't have the time or money to produce for the original game or expansion that they release later for a few dollars, if you don't want them don't buy them..everybody wins. As to modding, again.. same point. Why buy an expansion if people can just mod games? Simple answer really, they will be of a high quality, official, and supporting the devs.

I'm honestly not seeing the connection. A game can be both mod-friendly and complete and still have DLC. It's been done before. I never said to start "DLC'ing every component of their game" and I also wasn't talking about the expansion pack or prolonged DLC. I am talking about completely optional side content that has absolutely nothing to do with the main game or it's expansion after those things are complete for people who like them. Not cutting content and selling it later, not an expansion, nothing like that.. just plain and simple extra DLC down the road after the entire game is done and over with.

I've seen this sentiment before I just really don't get it. What's wrong about selling it in separate pieces? I have more than a few friends that couldn't care less about unit sprites, music, and face packs. Why should they have to pay the extra $5 to $10 dollars just to be able to get the expansion stuff they want? It's not like if they included them all in one pack the price would remain the same. Regardless, that's not how it will work with PoE. I feel this way too. and honestly.. as someone who gets really into the role playing and customization I would be more than happy to see portrait packs and the like produced and released after they are finished making the game and or it's expansion. I don't see what's so evil and money grubbing about pictures. If you don't want them, don't buy them..they have literally zero effect on the game but make people who like them happy.

I somehow missed those last time, it does look great though.

Yeah, while I'm entirely on your side I just wanted to point out people have a fairly strong reason for not being (whether their reason should be considered "right" or not is a totally different subject though). I'd never really thought of your second comment though, and that is sort of strange. Actually, now that I think of it I'm hard pressed to think of many.. if any fantasy settings for other races where they shared any form of cultural alteration to their bodies for beauty. Shaving, specific hairstyles, specific clothing styles, piercings, tattoos, unnaturally colored hair, etc. While in the real world most are very heavily influenced by physical appearance in these settings everyone seems to be very ambiguously natural and uncaring of such things. The races and sometimes everyone combined are usually very uniform.

I understand that. It's not like I expect anyone to not be humanly impacted by a trend in the industry. However, in the end, it really doesn't produce any positive benefit at all to simply decide to associate the sheer label of "DLC" with "bad." The next time an awesome developer puts out totally legit additional content, distributes it digitally, and charges money for it, you've instantly got an unnecessary bias towards it, even though it's the thing you don't dislike and that you WANT all those other companies to do. That, and like with the "purposely cutting content to later release as DLC" thing... it kinda makes you painfully skeptical about this, even when it's legit. I mean, how does the company prove to you that this extra stuff they're releasing was never ever going to be in the original game, ever, and that it wasn't just intentionally held back? Don't get me wrong... I know sometimes it's blatantly obvious it was part of the original plan, and was purposefully held back on and released like a week later. But, when the opposite happens, how do they prove they DIDN'T think of this 5 months ago, and just intentionally didn't spend an extra month putting it into the game in the first place, JUST because they planned, from the get-go, to milk it for DLC munnies? It's just really a bad mindset to have that doesn't do anyone any good. There's a really fine line between "I should be wary of DLC" and "DLC is pretty much just cheap, money-grubbing stuff now." Be wary of it, by all means. But the difference is always thinking "this could be good and legit; I don't automatically hate this particular item, yet, just because it's DLC." The assumption never really accomplishes anything but hurting yourself. Because, if you simply judge on a case-by-case basis, you still avoid the crap DLC, but you don't end up negatively judging the devs who are doing things properly, and being all paranoid that they could've put something into the original game, or they just want extra money and it's probably not good quality (based on the actions and decisions of completely different developers/publishers). It's not so much that such assumptions are that bad or destructive. It's just that they really don't do anything beneficial, at all. So, I simply encourage people to walk the fine line, instead of taking the easy/tempting route of just associating something like DLC with badness, just because it's happened before many times. That's actually one of my bigger issues with the format of DLC in general. I'm not saying it has never happened in the form of a classical retail expansion, but DLC allows for much cheaper less-risk for a business to milk a game for cheap DLC. When I saw a boxed retail pc expansion with discs and booklets and whatnot there was much less reason to believe they'd go through such trouble just to screw you out of a few bucks. I'm not saying I disagree with you though, because I completely understand where you are coming from and overall agree. It's just kind of the way humans work, stereotypes aren't just for people..when anything majorly behaves one way (or even if it doesn't and is believed to) it all gets that label. While I do agree with you like I said, I truly don't believe the average consumers attitude about DLC will ever change at this point because it's a) probably to late and b) most DLC still isn't giving people a reason to view it differently.

Only to people who feel that every female character needs to be sexually attractive. I'm rather ambivalent on the issue of beards on dwarf women, but I hardly see why it's any weirder than elf men not being able to grow beards. Than again, my opinions have been known to be rather strange. While I agree entirely with your main point I wanted to play devils advocate and point out that many real ethnicity's of men cannot grow proper facial hair or possibly any facial hair..not so much normal for women growing bears though.

I'd really love weather effects and things like fog. It makes an insanely big difference in how engrossing the atmosphere is, at least to me.

As always with kickstarter it pays to remember that you did not pay $280 for a game. You backed the production of a game to the tune of $280. As an inducement the makers of the game offered several rewards but the quality of those rewards and the game itself are not assured in the same way they might be if you'd actually bought something. I know it doesn't entirely change things, but I'm not a kickstarter backer. I only just found about PoE last week (for some reason).

A new class and or race would be an amazing addition, almost better than new area (to me). I don't really expect it to happen though.. it will probably be a more standard expansion. Of course not! If there isn't at least 5 more expansions announced before the game is released I'll be disappointed. No, but seriously.. it's just nice to speculate/share ideas I suppose.

Ideally and honestly? Neither, I want new locations..not just more of the same. However, if this is indeed what they've decided to do.. just a quest hub I guess, because I personally am not a fan of importing stuff unless I have to.. it's not exactly immersive. Edit : They said it better, I pretty much want this.

Oh that's good, at least they are willing to do that until/if they get the system set up on the site.

I never said the system is perfect, because you're right.. it isn't. Although as many will be quick to point out, you have to leave some room nonsensical mechanics less you want to make a game devoid of any enjoyment (for most) I happen to love tetris-styled loot bags with believable (or at least more so than other systems) amounts of space and penalizing weight systems. I'm also a masochistic gamer who loves cranking games up to their hardest difficulty and playing perma-death if possible though, and I understand that not everyone enjoys that.. in fact most don't. I'm fine with the game giving an unlimited loot container of sorts.. I just think it's something that should be earned is all. I can go on and on about specifics of it all day, but the plain short and simple version is I just don't like such meaningful freebies at the start of the game. and honestly.. unless PoE does something off the wall with loot I don't see how it would even affect early game-play, all it would do is make you feel like you're progressing when you get it later. Lets use Baldur's Gate for the example, since as we all know PoE is IE inspired. You start the game with your one character, you have 16 inventory slots, plus 3 quick item, 3 quiver, and 3 weapon plus gold has it's own location. You get your option of a first companion nearly instantly, and 2 others right after, followed by another 2, and so on. Not once through a play through in early game was there ever even enough loot to fill up every characters inventory, and with most of it just being trash to sell and towns frequent it was never an issue once. Assuming PoE plays anything like that.. this infinite storage wont even become a benefit until later into the game anyway. So by making it something you earn you feel progression within this world by having your story crafted and within this story you earn this amazing useful item, instead of making your character and *bam magical infinite storage*

Your example makes no sense because they are from entirely different premises. Of course saying the earth is engulfed in flames isn't an opinion. If something makes a feature worthless is though, and your example does nothing for me because I happen to think Fire Emblem is a **** game, so backing up a feature "working" with a feature supposedly working that I don't like in a game that I don't like does nothing...because it is only opinion that it works in that game. The same way some people think quest directions don't work, that loot weight systems don't work, that hell basically the entire cRPG genre "doesn't work". It's their opinion, I don't agree with it, but I don't go around yelling at them that they are wrong "because this game does it." But this is all really offtopic.. I didn't come here to argue with someone on how they want to define opinion. Back to my point. I never said anything about anything be realistic or not, so I don't know why you are even using this argument. I enjoy degrees of realism, but it's stupid to argue in a fantasy game with MAGIC. All I said is I don't think such a feature should be given to the player the second they start the game, an infinite bag is a powerful item that should have some level of incentive behind it that makes you feel like you are actually progressing throughout your adventure, which is why I said it should be given (somewhere around) mid-game so that it's still given early enough to be useful but not so early that inventory is never even a possible concern. I like character growth, not having these amazing abilities or items at my disposal from square one.

I don't really see how an opinion can be wrong, since it's an opinion. But, I will elaborate on why I feel that way. If there is so much loot that we need a bottomless pit to store it all in I can only imagine one of two situations. PoE is going to be an isometric skyrim where there's thousands of trash pieces of loot scattered across the world to warrant such a feature, which I personally.. don't like. or There's going to be tons of important loot that.. you can't use because it's stuck away in your stash that you can't access during battle, which I personally.. don't like. Unless each party member can only hold like.. 5 things, I don't see where a situation is going to stand that I'm going to need to strategically need to plan what they carry with them to such a degree, which again.. I wouldn't like. I honestly don't see the complaints with IE games in this area, I've never played through Baldur's gate for example and had a situation where I had 6 party members full with items and me going "Well damn, I can't pick up this common 1h sword that every mob drops.. this games loot system sucks" Either way, I can't think of a situation where I personally would enjoy the reason behind why we need an infinite loot bag. Again though, opinion.

and why should it not be a family heirloom? I was just pulling a few random examples out of my ass, it could be for any given reason. I just think that whatever that reason it shouldn't be at the very start of the game, because that otherwise all but defeats any purpose in even having inventory. If there's a PoE2 starting with it is fine with me, assuming there's some form of continuity.. but I don't like when the first game in a series you start with god-tier abilities or items.. which I would consider a bottomless bag that can hold any and everything you ever get in the game to be just that.

I would replace all weapons and magic with boomerangs. Hell, I'd also replace armor with boomerangs. Pillars of Boomerangs.

I have no real problems with a bag of holding type of mechanic, but I'd also prefer it not be given to you straight away either. Preferably this bottomless stash should be some type of valuable award/hidden treasure/etc that you obtain mid game. Late enough that it doesn't feel cheap and devalue loot, but early enough that it isn't pointless because you've basically already finished the game anyway.

Dwarfs(Dwarves?) would probably be one of my top picks if not for Orlans..more specifically Wild Orlans, I want to be a small furry beast.

No, you're right and I completely understand. I'm guilty of stereotyping DLC at times, but I have to agree with you. I've enjoyed some DLC as well, and as I mentioned I personally don't even mind smaller shallow DLC as long as it is done correctly. Unfortunately though, things probably wont change.. DLC has already gotten such a bad name within the general public that I wouldn't expect it to change any time soon if ever.

I think I can answer this. As you mentioned, by the very definition of what DLC is it isn't bad; DLC is just a medium for obtaining content. The issue isn't so much DLC's fault but what companies have done with it. When I think DLC I think of things like Jarrakul's example of horse armor, or intentional plot holes/cut content for the sake of making it later and charging. So I guess when I (and many others) say DLC what we really mean is closer to.. DLC-model? I can think of many great expansions that did exactly what the name implies..expanded the game some significant amount.. but I can't with DLC. I'm actually completely fine with DLC, if a few months after the games released the devs have enough time and funds to release a large pack of new portraits for the races for example that would be awesome, it's optional unobtrusive side content which I see no issue with, and I don't care if the expansion is physical or digital (although I'd love a physical box). TL;DR to get to me point though. I think what others fear isn't the expansion being literally DLC, but behaving like most DLC does. I don't care how much or how little the expansion adds, I will buy it.. but I wouldn't want to see Obsidian go down the route of "New Expansion $29.99 so now you can get the rest of the story we purposefully didn't give you in the game you paid for."

Ah, alright. That's good. Like I said.. it's not even for myself really, I probably wont stumble into enough money to go past my signed collectors edition, and I don't really need any of the other digital things. It just seemed odd to limit the money they could be making.

I noticed something today that I found a little strange to me when it comes to backing the project on the website. I paid for the signed collector's edition, the audio cd, and playing cards. Everything worked completely as is, all is good. However, I noticed that if I were to later decided I also wanted the I don't know.. Digital Strategy Guide, I would have to buy the game an entire second time just to get that add-on that I wanted. I understand that add-ons are well.. add-ons they shouldn't be purchasable alone and that makes sense. It would be a wise idea though to have some kind of system where people who have already made a purchase though can still access and pay for add-ons at a later time (even if it is only digital items for shipping reasons) I say this because with the current system you're potentially throwing away money people may have been willing to give for things they would have gotten at a later date when they had the funds for it. If something like this isn't done though, I think it'd be wise at least to have the page explicitly state that there's no going back so you better have everything you want now. I searched around the forums about this, but the last time it was discussed was in January with a dev saying they were looking into maybe adding it, and since it's April now I wasn't sure if it was a shelved idea for whatever reason or what.

I don't know how much of a split there really is in the community, but I know I can't be the only young person around. I'm just about to be 21..meaning most of these great cRPGs are nearly as old as I am. I hate when people just try to pass it off as nostalgia, because for people like myself.. that's obviously not even possible, unless someone wants to insinuate I was playing through BG and IWD at the age of 6. My point in this though I guess is.. people can recognize a good genre without being 40 years old with rose-tinted glasses on.